varying degrees of light

In our days we will live
Like our ghosts will live
Pitching glass at the cornfield crows
And folding clothes

Like stubborn boys across the road
We'll keep everything
Grandma's gun and the black bear claw
That took her dog

When Sister Lowery says, "Amen"
We won't hear anything
The ten-car trains will take that word
That fledgling bird

And the fallen house across the way
It'll keep everything
The baby's breath
Our bravery wasted and our shame

And we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire
Both our tender bellies wound in baling wire
All the more a pair of underwater pearls
Than the oak tree and its resurrection fern

In our days we will say
What our ghosts will say
We gave the world what it saw fit
And what'd we get?

Like stubborn boys with big green eyes
We'll see everything
In the timid shade of the autumn leaves
And the buzzard's wing

And we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire
Our tender bellies are wound around in baling wire
All the more a pair of underwater pearls
Than the oak tree and its resurrection fern

-Resurrection Fern